


the riotous failure of our theologies

by Eliane



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Angst, Character Study, Established Relationship, M/M, a lot of metaphors, harry and louis are very in love, mostly because it's the end of the world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2016-02-27
Packaged: 2018-05-23 10:45:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6114073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eliane/pseuds/Eliane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the world has ended there's still, etched on Louis' skin, a compass pointing to home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the riotous failure of our theologies

**Author's Note:**

> as usual, thanks to [Marianna](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshiner/pseuds/sunshiner) for putting up with my awful ideas and  
> to [Clara](http://ferninism.tumblr.com/) for proofreading this. 
> 
> the title comes from this [poem](http://poems.com/poem.php?date=16554) by jordan windholz.

“North or South?” Harry asks, looking at the compass in his hands. Louis is pretty sure the compass has been broken for weeks now and that Harry knows it too. Yet, he can’t really bring himself to say it out loud. If nothing else, maintaining the illusion that they have a sense of direction, of purpose can’t do them any harm.

The skin on Louis’ forearm itches.

“Lou?” Harry asks again. “North or South?”

“North,” Louis finally says, voice made raspy with a combination of lack of sleep and dehydration. “North,” he repeats, a bit firmer now. “Reckon that’s our best shot at finding water regularly.”

“This way, then,” Harry says pointing in a direction that could as well lead them to Africa, for all Louis knows. Not that it really matters anymore.

“Right,” Louis whispers, adjusting the backpack on his shoulders. “Let’s go then.”

He scratches the skin on his arm, in an attempt to make the itching stop. He doesn’t look at the compass inked on it, pointing to home, keeps his eyes firmly trained on Harry in front of him.

Still, he is oh so well aware of the irony.

***

The area they’re currently walking through is all burnt grass and small bushes. That’s how Louis thinks now, in terms of landscapes and vegetation and how easy it is for them to find water.

“How many bottles?” he asks Harry, even though he knows exactly how many bottles they have left. It’s mostly the reassurance he wants.

“Four.”

Four is fine. Four means they can go on like this for a few more days before they absolutely have to find water. It means that they can have an early night in and won’t have to push themselves to their limit. Not that it happens often, they’ve learned the hard way how to ration water and make sure to always find some more before all of their bottles go empty. But it can happen.

“That’s good,” he says out loud.

Harry doesn’t answer but then again Louis didn’t expect him to.

***

So Louis marks the passing of time by weighing the amount of water they have left in their tiny bottles and he measures the distance they walk by evaluating the changes in scenery and they rely on a broken compass to decide where they should next head to. None of this really makes sense but then the world stopped making sense a while ago.

Adapting. That’s what they’re doing.

It’s kind of devastating.

***

They don’t really make love anymore. They still did in the beginning. He’s not sure if it was in an attempt to convince themselves that even if everything around them had changed an essential part of their relationship remained the same, or if it was to keep a semblance of routine. They woke up, they ate, they walked, they made love. They went to sleep and repeated it all over again.

He can’t remember when they stopped. Maybe one night they had been too exhausted and it had blended into another night, and another. Maybe they had just stopped caring about the idea of normalcy. It’s hard to hold onto it when you’re exhausted all the time, not the exhaustion that comes with working too hard and dreaming of being able to sleep for a week but the exhaustion that comes with knowing that this is it. This is what they know and this is what their lives are going to be like now, with no end in sight. It’s an exhaustion no dream can cure.

So they don’t make love. They still kiss sometimes. Louis presses soft kisses against Harry’s hair and Harry’s lips brush against Louis’ ankle, where the lines of his triangle tattoo are slowly fading. Once in a while, a peck on the lips.

Sometimes, when despite the exhaustion he can’t find sleep, Louis slowly disentangles his body from where it’s pressed against Harry’s and lies on his back, eyes wide open in the dark. More often than not Harry wakes up and turns around to curl against him. He rests one hand against Louis’ inner thigh.

It feels like the most intimate thing they’ve ever done.

*** 

They find water the day after and Louis restarts his mental counter.

Ten bottles. Ten days to go.

*** 

“You know what’s funny?” Harry asks, that night, while they’re lying down next to the small fire they’ve built.

“What?”

“That’s never how it happens in the movies. Like, people always have time to prepare for the end of the world and they’re given a scientific explanation. We didn’t get any of that. No preparation, no explanation. We just woke up one morning and the world had ended.”

 _I know_ , Louis wants to say. _I was there_. He doesn’t.

“Do you think that’s how the dinosaurs felt?” Harry adds.

(They have a tendency to speak more when they’ve just found water. It’s easier then not to count every word that comes out of their mouths, not to think about the ever-present threat of dehydration. They get more careful when their stock of water starts diminishing. The last two days are almost always completely silent.)

“That someone should have given them a scientific explanation?” Louis laughs.

“No. That it was unexpected. Brutal. Like, animals can feel those things, can’t they? It’s instinct or something.”

“I don’t know Haz. Maybe.”

What Louis knows is that the dinosaurs didn’t die in a few hours or a few days, it probably took thousands of years. Or at least, that’s what he remembers from the book he read on the subject when he was a little boy and became obsessed with them for a few months, like every child tends to do. He wonders if it’s going to be the same for humanity, people barely surviving for decades, maybe centuries before they completely disappear. He wonders if it’s worth keeping on going for so long if that’s how it ends.

“Would you feel better if we had been given a warning or like, an explanation?” he asks.

“Maybe not, but we would’ve had time to prepare. To say goodbye.”

“I don’t think you can ever prepare for the end of the world, Haz.”

He doesn’t say anything about saying goodbye and knows that Harry notices his silence. Harry squeezes his hand once before curling to his side, ready to go to sleep. Louis stays lying on his back a little longer. He tries not to think about the compass on his arm, about the word home. How it’s now meaningless.

The skin itches and itches and itches.

***

They had been on a holiday when it happened, far from England. Louis isn’t sure them being in London would have changed anything, would have made any of this easier. He thinks, sometimes, that maybe it wouldn’t have hit them as hard and as quickly. Maybe they would have tried to find their families and friends, wouldn’t have felt so utterly alone.

Maybe they wouldn’t have survived.

Harry had asked him about it, at the very beginning. “Do you have any idea why we survived?” Louis had shrugged and answered something about chance and coincidences.

If asked about it now, he would answer differently. They are survivors, him and Harry, and he thinks that maybe whatever twist of fate or deity that destroyed the world recognized that in them. This ability to survive anything. That’s why they’re still walking, day after day, carrying their bottles of water and a broken compass in their backpacks.

It’s not an ability he feels proud of.

***

They avoid people. The water they carry is too precious to be shared and they have no hope at recognizing any of the strangers they would meet.

 _It is what it is_ are the words embedded in Louis’ skin.

Sometimes, he wants to rip it all off until he’s left raw and brand new, until there’s nothing left to remind him of a world that used to be and isn’t anymore.

One night, when Harry is asleep, Louis scratches the compass etched on his skin until it bleeds.

It’s less satisfying than he thought it would be.

*** 

The next morning, when Harry sees the red swollen skin of his forearm, Louis averts his eyes.

***

“It’s a lie,” he says later, when they have settled down for the night (five bottles left, it’s an early one.) “Or that’s what it feels like. Like a lie.”

“It was for us,” Harry replies softly.

“It was for us in a world that doesn’t exist anymore. It was for us in a world where we had a family and friends, and fucking millions of pounds. Where we had houses and we didn’t have to count bottles of water every day to survive. Where all those things, money and houses, actually meant something. It’s all fucking gone.”

“I know it is. But we’re still here, yeah? We’re still us.”

“For how long?” Louis asks and he knows he sounds a bit hysterical, knows that his voice is breaking and that he’s on the verge of something – something like collapsing but he can’t stop. “How long are we gonna do this? Walking every day, barely surviving, following a compass that’s fucking broken? It’s broken, Haz.”

“I know, Lou,” and there’s something in his voice, a tired resignation that breaks Louis’ heart a little more. “I know. Come here, please?” he says, gesturing for Louis to come next to him.

Louis does and they hug like this. It’s awkward and uncomfortable and Louis can’t stop sobbing against a jumper Harry has been wearing for weeks now. Louis grabs it, trying to anchor himself to something – anything. The tattoos used to do that for him, to help him calm down when it felt like everything was crumbling around them but now they’re just a reminder of everything they once took for granted.

“I don’t know how long,” Harry whispers against Louis’ neck. “But it’s gonna end, one day, and when it does I still want it to be you and me. Do you want that too?”

“Yes of course,” Louis says, and that’s never been the question, really.

“Come on then. Lie down with me.”

So Louis does. 

“Would you… Would you have it removed if you could? Or like would you cover it up?”

It’s a fair question and Louis wishes he could say no, that what it used to stand for still means something to him in this meaningless world but he can’t. And the funny thing is, covering up tattoos had always been Harry’s thing. Harry who was always more impulsive when it came to marking his body with ink while Louis spent months hesitating between different designs and carefully considering which body part he wanted to alter forever.

“I don’t know Haz. Do you really think this is going to end?”

“One way or another, yeah. I’m sure that somewhere people are starting to settle down again. The worst has passed, Lou, you know it has. They’re probably gathering in new or old places, ready to start again. To rebuild humanity.”

“What about us then?”

Harry doesn’t answer and Louis doesn’t push. They had dreamed of settling down too – just not in this world.

“I love you,” Louis finally murmurs, watching the flames of their small fire illuminate the night. It’s not that late but he feels like he’s been running for days. He closes his eyes, letting the exhaustion he tries so hard to keep at a distance during the day wash over him.

Harry’s hand comes to rest on Louis’ forearm, his thumb slowly caressing the compass.

“I know.”

*** 

“North or South?” Harry asks the next morning, when they’re ready to go.

“Haz, it’s…” Louis begins.

“I know it is,” Harry says, not letting Louis finish. He looks down at the compass, chewing his lip a little, before asking again “North or South?”

“North. Let’s… Let’s keep going North.”

The thing is Louis gets it, he does. Enough to let it go.

That day, when his skin starts itching like it always does now, he ignores it.

*** 

They must actually be going North, Louis marvels, because it gets colder and windier. Not that he’s an expert at geography but he knows the basics. They leave behind the sun burnt grass for miles and miles of forest and things settle down a bit within him.

Walking all day becomes boring fairly quickly. In the beginning they used to talk to keep themselves occupied, to prevent their thoughts from taking up too much space in their minds. It was before they had established the water bottles system, before they had learned how to organize their days in the most efficient way possible, before talking had become more exhausting than comforting.

To pass the time, Louis makes up games. On some days, when he doesn't feel like putting much effort into it, he goes through the basic ones. He gives himself an amount of steps he is allowed to take in one day and tries to stick to it or he chooses a random letter of the alphabet and tries to think of how many songs he knows that begin with it. Sometimes, he tries to sing them all in his head. It’s the only kind of singing he does anymore. They’re meaningless games, just enough to keep him from going crazy with the repetitive boredom of each passing day.

On other days, he feels like putting effort into his games. He invents different lives for them, in which they would have a reason for walking all day long that has nothing to do with the end of the world. They could be archaeologists on an expedition, trying to discover humanity’s hidden secrets. They could be scientists on a mission. The premise is not what really matters. Louis goes over the details of his fantasy obsessively, trying to paint the most accurate picture possible in his mind. As if the more realistic it got, the closer it would be to becoming reality. As if they could somehow leave this life behind to enter Louis’ carefully constructed parallel universe and live in it happily.

It’s something of a childish hope.

Sometimes, when he feels a bit more desperate than usual, a bit closer to losing something he’s trying so hard to keep a grip on – something like his sanity, like his sense of self, he doesn’t go through the myriad of details of lives they haven’t lived, but remembers the one they used to live. It’s not something he does often, knows he couldn't bear it more than once in a while. He tries to remember exactly how their bedroom looked like, tries to remember how bright the light illuminating their kitchen used to shine on the early summer mornings, tries to remember the softness of lazy afternoons spent doing nothing but reading and laughing together.

 _This is who you were,_ he repeats to himself like a broken record _, this is the life you used to_ _have._ _You had a home and you were happy. This is who you were, this is who you were, this is who you were._

The evening always comes, interrupting any fantasy he might have constructed during the day and, with it, the nightly ritual of counting their water bottles.

He never thinks about what it would be like if Harry weren’t here with him.

*** 

The next time they find water, it’s putrid and they only have a full bottle left in their bags.

Louis doesn’t cry.

They sit down next to the useless pond of water, too exhausted to keep on going.

“Do you ever think,” Louis says although he knows better than to start a conversation when they have so little water left, “that maybe we weren’t given any explanation, like scientific or otherwise, because there is none?”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe… maybe someone just decided to be done with us.”

“Like God?”

“God, or fate, or history.”

“Why are we still here then?” Harry asks, repeating the words he said to Louis at the very beginning.

“Because, maybe, something has to survive.”

“We aren’t the only survivors, though,” Harry says quietly. 

“It feels like we are.”

They stay silent, for a while. Louis gets his backpack off his shoulders and puts it behind him before lying down, head carefully resting on the soft part of the bag. The sun is beginning to set and Louis wishes he could appreciate the view but all he can think of is the little bottle of water they have left, about how the next day is gonna be spent in a feverish state, both of them growing increasingly restless and anxious until they find water. If they find water.

“I miss talking to you,” Louis finally says.

“I’m right here,” Harry tries, but now that Louis has started he can’t stop.

“I miss being able to talk to you without having to think that I shouldn’t, that I’m wasting away saliva and energy I should be keeping. I miss how easy it was to laugh together. I hate how hard it is to laugh now, how every little fucking thing is hard and how it never seems to end. I miss,” he says so softly he can barely hear his own voice, “I miss kissing you.”

“I miss kissing you too.”

Harry’s voice feels incredibly fragile and Louis turns to look at him. He’s crying silently and the first thing Louis thinks of is that he shouldn’t waste water like this. Then, that if he can’t cry, he’s glad Harry is able to do it for the both of them.

He scoots closer to Harry, resting his head on Harry’s shoulder and closes his eyes. Harry presses a tiny kiss against his temple.

It’s the longest conversation they’ve had in a while.

*** 

They find what used to be a river. It’s mostly dry but there are still little ponds of water, here and there, and they decide to keep walking next to it.

The weight of the past months and the uncertainty of the future hang heavily between them. 

Louis knows it’s not the first time in his life he must have felt this absence of purpose, this lack of direction. He remembers being a teenager, with all the harsh bits and the slight existential dread. He remembers being a bit too wild and all over the place and longing for something bigger than Doncaster, dreaming of something brighter. Then, he remembers meeting Harry.

He looks at the compass on his forearm, then at Harry in front of him. His hair is the longest it’s ever been and Louis thinks that there’s no one but him to admire it now. Somehow, at this precise moment, it feels more heartbreaking than anything they’ve been through.

He looks at the compass again and tentatively presses his left thumb on it, trying to feel the ink under his skin as if it was still brand new. He caresses it softly and thinks- _I’m sorry._

*** 

The river turns into a lake. It’s actually nowhere near big enough to deserve the name of lake but it’s still bigger than any other surface of water they’ve found in ages.

They don’t exactly decide to settle down there, but after they’ve replenished their bottles of water they waste a bit of time hanging around, and then agree that it wouldn’t be worth it to start walking when it’s almost midday.

The thing is, Louis wants to be able to talk to Harry again without having to count his words. He wants to be able to kiss him and he wants to go to sleep without thinking about how much water they have left.

He wants for things to feel like home again, even if it’s just for a little while. 

So they stay.

*** 

They spend the first days near the lake sleeping almost constantly. Louis had known they were exhausted but hadn’t fully realised the extent of it. Finding water had always been more important than anything else so they had carried on for months on end without ever taking the time to just stop. 

Now that they have, it feels like thousands of little things they had stopped bothering with because they didn’t have the energy anymore are catching up with them. For one, they stink. They take bath after bath in the lake, trying to wash the scent of travel and exhaustion and the end of the world off their skin. Louis isn’t sure it works but he still scrubs his skin raw until it aches. They wash their battered clothes to the best of their ability without any soap at their disposal and spend an entire afternoon naked, shivering next to their small fire, waiting for them to dry. It’s a bit absurd and more than uncomfortable and it makes Louis laugh.

When he puts his clothes back on, he feels a bit more human, a bit more like himself than he has in a long time.

*** 

Then they talk. It’s not much, but it’s better than it was on the road. They go to bed well rested, curled against each other like vines, basking in the fleeting warmth coming from the fire. Louis thinks about the picture they must make, two small shadows entwined in the dark. He wonders if they look as alone as they feel.

He goes to sleep counting bottles of water in his head. Some habits are hard to unlearn, especially when he doesn’t know how long they’ll be staying here.

Still, the skin on his forearm doesn’t itch as often as it used to.

***

“Lou, can you please braid my hair?” Harry asks, one day. 

“I don’t have anything to tie it up with, Haz,” Louis answers.

“It’s fine, I don’t… Could you just braid it, please? I’d like that.”

“Sure, love. Come here,” he says, gesturing for Harry to come sit next to where Louis is standing. The strands of Harry’s hair are soft under his fingers and he starts working on his task steadily.

“You know,” he says after a few minutes, “I wouldn’t have.”

“Have what?”

“I wouldn’t have had the tattoo removed.”

“Oh.” 

“Even like. Even if the world hadn’t ended and, I don’t know, we had broken up I would never have got it removed. I don’t think I would ever want to forget about this time of my life.” 

Harry doesn’t answer, just hums softly in acknowledgement. They both know what Louis means. It still hurts, it will probably never stop hurting and it’s okay if it does. He can live with it, they both can.

“It’s done,” Louis says when he speaks again.

“How does it look?” Harry asks, before adding, “I wish we had a mirror.” 

Louis comes to stand in front of him, bending his knees a little so his face is level with Harry’s. 

“It looks beautiful, love,” he murmurs. “You look absolutely beautiful.”

Harry smiles at him, incredibly bright and Louis’ breath catches in his throat. He rests his forehead against Harry’s, their lips barely touching. “Like the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he adds, gently caressing Harry’s hair.

He knows it won’t last long, that the wind will soon undo Louis’ hard work just like them staying at the lake, this momentary reprieve, won’t last. But, for a moment, everything is perfect. 

*** 

There’s no way to describe what it feels like to wake up one seemingly ordinary morning and realise that everything you knew and took for granted is gone. There were times in Louis’ life, precise moments he could pinpoint even now, where it felt like his world had suddenly been robbed from him or was crumbling under his feet, without him being able to do anything to hold onto it. It’s not a feeling you can easily forget. Yet, he hadn’t been prepared for it to happen quite so literally.

The memories of this time are a blur, fleeting feelings of panic and dread more than actual scenes he can recall. There’s one thing, though, he remembers clearly – Harry holding his wrist and whispering “wait” in an urgent tone before dashing back into their destroyed hotel room. He had come back holding in his hands, like it was the most precious thing he could think of, a compass Louis had bought for him the day before as a joke. A small trinket.

(“Here,” Louis had laughed. “You can have your own too, now.”) 

Then, they had started walking and hadn’t stopped for months, Harry still holding onto the compass long after it had ceased working, long after Louis’ skin had started itching permanently. 

In the pale light of the morning, Harry breathing softly next to him, still asleep but alive – above all else alive, Louis thinks that he doesn’t mind so much anymore.

***

They wake up one day and Louis knows it’s time for them to go. They put their bottles of water back in their bags and he tries not to think too much about what it entails. Now that they’ve stopped once, he knows that they can do it again, that it’s about finding the right place more than anything else. In the meantime, they have each other and it’s more than enough.

“North or South?” Harry asks gently. 

Louis sighs and laughs a little. “South,” he says taking Harry’s left hand in his, eyes fixed on his rope and Harry’s anchor aligning, like they were always supposed to. “Let’s go back South.”

They start walking. In their bags- ten bottles full of water and a broken compass.

The skin on Louis’ forearm doesn’t itch.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr post](http://cleminism.tumblr.com/post/140058643262/thanks-to-marianna-sunshiner-for-the-graph-the).


End file.
